Going global with Plantago: a spatially distributed model system for population ecology

Ecologists predict that populations will shift in response to global change; however, the data available for developing and testing movement and persistence models are spatially very limited. We could progress further and faster on this urgent problem if we could study many mapped populations and discern the mechanisms driving population change.  Starting with Plantago lanceolata as a model system, we propose a co-ordinated effort to develop theory, supported by an awesome data set, on the abiotic and biotic drivers of population persistence and distribution. This is the launch of a new globally distributed project on spatial plant population dynamics.